Stratfor emails suggest the U.S. negotiated Sinaloa and AFO truce

Earlier this year, Wikileaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, which consists of over 5 million emails from the Austin, Texas based global intelligence agency Stratfor. The emails vary in date from 2004 to 2011. Hackers allegedly took down the Stratfor website and accessed the emails illegally. While the emails did not receive as much attention as previously released diplomatic cables, several of those emails contained information suggesting informal deals between United States officials and Mexican cartels.

Several of the emails were between a Mexican diplomat and an employee of Stratfor. The website Narco-News recently broke down some of these emails, which told how official deals are usually not made, but messages are indirectly sent loud and clear. They state that typically U.S. officials are allowing the dominant cartel to operate and smuggle drugs, as long as they do not cause excessive violence. They go on to say that in the instance of the Sinaloa Cartel versus the Arrellano-Felix Organization that a peace accord was suggested and even possibly brokered by U.S. officials. High profile arrests and seizures were underway until the two groups made a truce. After a truce was struck, the arrests and seizures slowed down significantly.

While real evidence of these types of deals is hard to come by, many analysts tend to agree with the theory. Violence has significantly slowed in Tijuana and Baja California since the two now local cartels stopped viscously fighting. It is believed that the Sinaloa Cartel is the dominant organization in Baja California, but the Arrellano-Felix Organization is allowed to operate due to the deal that was made.

Comments

Yeah, great, but I'm still going to avoid any more day shopping trips to TJ until many other things there change. No more crooked cops preying on tourists, no more imaginary traffic offenses, and no more shakedowns by the ATM bandits.

The bigger issues are for the bigger boys to work out. I don't like being an "innocent bystander" and will avoid the whole farce.